Originally the idea here was to try to find an effective and safe way to counter Zenith Siege Engines and Shield Bearers (I decided to man up instead of just complain about them, herp a derp) on 10 difficulty level. Unfortunatelly that didn't go quite as planned but I still got a challenging game. AI 2 surely gets Zenith Siege Engines and every wave sent by AI 2 usually has dozens of them. However it's Artillerist/Vorpal so it has many other unlocks too so the budget gets spread through out numerous ship types so I'm not getting beaten up by as many ZSEs as I'd hoped. And neither of the AIs seems to have unlocked Shield Bearers. Oh well. I'm still having fun and this is a challenging game as it is.

The last time I've really played AI War was probably like 2 years ago. I think my last AAR was like 3 or 4 years ago. Recently studying and fitness have taken vast majority of my energy and focus. However now that I have a 2 week vacation and I'm still recovering from a flu (in other words: no studying nor going to the gym) it seems like a perfect opportunity to reset my brain by slaughtering some robots.

AI 1: 10 Raid Engine/VengefulAI 2: 10 Artillerist/Vorpal

Settings:

I'm already 3 hours in but I'd say I'm still in the early game. The beginning is by far the most difficult phase against the Raid Engine AI type. Especially without any kind of superweapon. No Golems, Spire, Spirecraft nor Champions. Only fleet ships, starships, turrets and other normal stuff. The only real way to destroy the Raid Engines is to first send an Assault Transport with Fighters and Munitions Boosters to clear the way of Tachyon Sentinels. And then another Assault Transport with Raider and Plasma Siege Starships and Munitions Boosters to destroy the Raid Engine. Sacrificing Starships to get rid of a Raid Engine is expensive and takes time. And most importantly, increases the AIP. At the beginning the AIP is 10 so the destroying the first Raid Engine increases the AIP by 50%. On high difficulty level that increase is very noticeable and hurts. I've already lost a command station a couple of times (both Shark plots) and at least one cryopod (nope, didn't save scum).

Which is why I used the first 10000+3000 knowledge to unlock Mark II Economical Command Stations for more power and Mark II Needler, Laser, Sniper and Gravitational Turrets and Mark I Hardened Force Fields. Mark III Gravitational Turrets and Area Minefields were unlocked shortly after.

Here's the current situation:This is how I usually use the "priority" things. However for me P9 doesn't always have higher priority than P6 for example. For me they're just a way to mark things.P0 = Avoid this planetP1 = Beachhead / NeuterP2 = Capture planetP3 = Data CenterP4 = Co-ProcessorP5 = Super TerminalP6 = Just somethingP7 = Advanced Factory / Starship ConstructorP8 = FabricatorP9 = Advanced Research Station / Core Shield Generator A (Not enabled in this game)

And my planets:At the moment Swog is vulnerable to threat coming from from Anthem which is why I'm going to capture it. I will also move the Command Station and the defenses farther away from the Ascs G20 wormhole in case an AI wave/something decides to retreat from from there Swog. To protect Acsc G20 I will beachhead it's wormhole on Crysantheum (The one with P5 (it has a Superterminal (which I'll hack later))). To protect Ascs G20 even more and Anthem (when I have captured it in the future) I'll beachhead Crysantheum's wormhole on Revenge of the Lith.

I'm going to capture the planets marked as P2. With energy from the Zenith Power Generator from Acenstry VIII I'm going to beachhead all surrounding AI planets so I have more depth in my defenses against CPAs.

The problem is that I'm running out of energy and use Matter Converters. So I need the Zenith Power Generator ASAP. However the problem with that is the AS2009 planet (The one right below Ancestry VIII) marked as P8 (it has a Missile Turret Fabricator) which has a well protected Raid Engine. AS2009 is also too far for Assault Transports. The Assault Transport gets destroyed as it enters that planet.At this AIP each Raid Engine wave is easily 3500 ships. So what I'm going to do is top up my metal storage with the help of Salvage, I mean Raid Engines, and then I'm going to capture Ancestry VIII with everything I have. I'm going to bring all the engineers and insta build all the defenses, send an EMP trough the wormhole and beachhead AS2009 with all the Sniper Turrets and focus down the Raid Engine. I'll probably have to use a couple of Lightning Warheads for defense as well.I think that will be cryptonite enough.. don't need no Shield Bearers on top of that..

Other important notes:-SH 2069-28.21 (Planet with P8) has an Advanced Factory which I'm going to hack for Mark IV Bombers late game. It also has a Laser Turret Fabricator which I'm going to most likely hack too.-If I manage to capture those 3 planets marked as P2 I'm probably set up for the rest of the game. They say well planned is half done.

During the attack to Ancestry VIII I lost my command station on Swog to a normal wave and a few Raid Engine waves. Losing the Command Station triggered an exogalactic strike force in addition to the Raid Engine on AS2009. Half of the exo attacked my homeworld SHC-2511 and half attacked Ancestry VIII while I was still building the turrets. I had to use a full cap of Mark I Lightning Warheads to keep the Zenith Power Generator alive. I had to reload once because an Infiltrator Guardian snuck by and sniped the Zenith Power Generator. But not the second time. Now I had my Scout Starships in place to detect those sneaky bastards.

Before the last Warhead:

After the last Warhead:Well that didn't do much.. At least I got rid of most of the AI Starships which were by far the biggest threat on that menu of destruction.

Thanks to strong defenses and salvage from thousands of AI ships on all of my planets I managed to finish building all of the defenses on Ancestry VIII. Now I need to clean up the planets, build more Lightning Warheads and beachhead AS2009 ASAP. I most likely wont make it before the next Raid Engine wave though.

Defenses built on Ancestry VIII, 37 seconds to the next Raid Engine wave from AS2009:

Mean while on my homeworld..This after destroying the exo galactic strike force which had dozens of starships and a flagship booster Hunder/Killer. Defenses still stand strong however.

Now off to beachhead AS2009.This is what I mean when I tell you to "beachhead it"!

Meanwhile 4000 Missile Frigates from the Raid Engine are attacking Ancestry VIII:Already managed to destroy most of them. Focus firing those Carriers. I gate raided Juliet November (the planet above Ancestry VIII) during the attack to make sure I don't gate waves from that wormhole. It's the closes wormhole to the Zenith Power Generator on Ancestry VIII. I also unlocked Mark II Force Fields. Scrapped some Mark I Force Fields my homeworld and replaced them with the Mark IIs. Built the scrapped Mark I Force Fields on Ancestry VIII to protect the Command Station and the Zeith Power Genrator. Mark IIs were too big since they would have covered some of the turrets.

Dropped a Mark I EMP and then an Assault Transport filled with Engineers and Mobile Builders. I tried to focus build Mark II Sniper Turrets while stuff was still EMPd but building them took quite a while so I wansn't successful this time. I got the Raid Engine down to 76% health and managed to soften up some of the shields covering it. The main problem were the Ion Cannons. Will have to do another run but I think the next one will do it. Might have to use a Lightning Warhead or two. The next Raid Engine wave will come in 41 seconds.

Oh and now the Zenith Miners decided to come visit too! Got 3 Miners: on Ancestry VIII (of COURSE!), on Juliet November and on Reggeth. Looks like all of the stuff hit the fan at once.

Time for another beachhead. Oh great, I triggered the Raid Eye too. And nearly 6000 AI ships have been announced. Yeah definitely all of it hit the fan. Like all of it. Also there's only 442 AI Missile Frigates left on Ancestry VIII which are conveniently retreating on top of this beachhead.

The Raid Engine is down to 54%, EMP will last for 4 more seconds and about 60% of the Sniper Turrets are 47% built. Also Raid Eye's wave has been announced and it's nearly 4000 ships. Might be a time for Mark II or even III Warhead.

Aaand done. Ok now I just need to survive the fallout (not that I'm going to nuke or anything).

The AI has a very nice coctail going on. There was nearly 200 Eye Bots, nearly 100 Zenith Siege Engines, almost 20 hybrids, 15 Raid Starships and a lot more. All of that was boosted to 240% attack power by AI Munitions Boosters which I tried to focus fire with Laser Turrets.

Yep that was close. I waited until the last second before I detonated the Lightning Warhead. Would have died wihtout it. I actually had to reload once because I forgot to focus fire the Zenith Siege Engines and Munitions Boosters fast enough. The Zenith Siege Engines (thanks to that ability they have) destroyed the Counter Sniper Turret next to my Home Command Station which allowed all the Snipers and Sentinels to start bombarding the Force Fields. I died a couple minutes after that.

Now I just need to clean up this dirt and I can take a breath. Or so I think. It's almost 4 hours in-game time so it's time for the second CPA in an hour or so.

Ancestry VIII I managed to save by order all Engineers to build a Mark I Lightning Warhead and a new Mark I Force Field NEXT to the Command Station and other Force Fields (See the selected force field). Because buildings can not be built under a Force Field that has taken damage in x amount of time. So I built a new Force Field next to the other ones and took everything (including the kitchen sink and my fleet commander's pet hamster) and focus fired the last AI Carrier that was about to drill trough the Force Fields and ruin my day.

Peace has come at last. Defenses are rebuilt and metal is flowing. For now. After that it feels strange to see only 423 threat.

The AIP is already 138. We'll see how far I get this time.

And wow that was intense. I feel drained. Off to sleep. Will capture the rest of the P2 planets tomorrow.

For this success I thank the last second Lightning Warhead detonations, the hero Force Field which saved Ancestry VIII and the Zenith Power Generator and the Munitions Boosters. I had to reload a couple of times here and there whenever I forgot to take something into account. Forgetting to focus fire specific ships, forgetting to put scout starships in place to detect stealth ships and mistakes like that.

Also I accidentally put the same picture twice. "Before the last warhead" was twice and there was no after. Fixed that.

Could you post what tech unlocks you have? I'd load the save to check but I don't have the final expansion ;_;

Also, what's the general plan for taking on the AI homeworlds in a game like this? You're taking so few planets and it looks like you're spending most of the K you do get on turrets. You've mentioned bomber IVs, but are you going to be unlocking IVs of any other fleet ship (also, is spending 100 hack points worth it for a single mark IV)?

it almost looks like you're just gonna dump a couple lightning warheads into the homeworld wormhole and then beachhead it. i... it can't be that easy, can it?

Welcome to the forums and definitely enjoy the journey of learning AI War!

It's like remembering childhood when I think of my early days in AI War. (I just realized this could be interpreted very wrong)When I played with my friends in the forest and climbed trees.When I played against One-Way Doormaster for the first time and destroyed too many Black Hole Machines and had too many wormholes to defend.Oh the good old days.

I once had over 400 AIP and I had to use Lightning Warheads to stop normal waves since they had well over 10k ships. It was right before I attacked the AI homeworlds. I don't remember if I won the game or if I abandoned it as too grindy.

Also, what's the general plan for taking on the AI homeworlds in a game like this? You're taking so few planets and it looks like you're spending most of the K you do get on turrets. You've mentioned bomber IVs, but are you going to be unlocking IVs of any other fleet ship (also, is spending 100 hack points worth it for a single mark IV)?

it almost looks like you're just gonna dump a couple lightning warheads into the homeworld wormhole and then beachhead it. i... it can't be that easy, can it?

Well it's not as simple as just building full caps of all Warheads and attack moving them to AI Homeworld.

Since I chose Munitions Boosters as my bonus ships I might not actually have to get Mark IV Bombers. I might unlock Mark II Bombers, Mark II Munitions Boosters (After which my everything will do 2.1x damage), Mark II Plasma Siege Starships and Mark II Bomber Starships. The hacking points I'd have used to hack the Advanced Factory I could use for knowledge hacking. But I have hacked AF just to get Mark IV Bombers in the past and it worked. At this level it doesn't really matter how many ships you unlock in a sense that you will always be underpowered (unless you use superweapons).

To achieve superiority in firepower you basically just have to use enough Warheads. Edit: Mobile Space Docks help tremendously too. So I'm going to build full caps of all Lightning and Armored Warheads which are going to be stealthed by Cloaker Starships. My fleet is going to be in Assault Transports which are invisible too. When I enter the first Core planet the AI will spawn a part of it's strategic reserve in response. While still being invisible I'm going to destroy all of them with a Warhead. Then I enter the Homeworld itself which has planetary cloak detection. First I'm going to send a lot of empty Assault Transports as cannon fodder, then the Assault Transports with my fleet and then Warheads and Cloaker Starships except one. The Cloaker Starships don't usually last very long. I'll immediately send an Armored Warhead to each Core Guard Post and the normal Lightning Warheads will be used to destroy the strategic reserve and the Force Fields protecting the AI Home Command Station. I might use an Armored Warhead for that purpose too. The one Cloaker Starship which I left behind is still cloaking super boosting an EMP warhead on the adjacent AI Core planet. That EMP will be used to delay the Special Forces which have started coming towards me as soon as I entered the first core planet. Depending on how far the Special Forces are I may or may not have Warheads left to destroy them too. I could also lure the Special Forces on the core worlds by sending an empty Assault Transport on one of the Core planets and then destroy them with Warheads. I will probably lose full caps of all Lightning and Armored Warheads and my whole fleet but that is the cost of defeating the first AI. All of this will significantly increase the AIP and launch counter attacks (from destroying the Core Guard Posts). I will have to survive the fallout and rebuild and then do the same to the other AI. Edit: Yeah I'm going to definitely unlock Mobile Space Docks for the Homeworld assault. They will keep building more Munitions Boosters and Bombers and repair the damaged Starships. Munitions Boosters and Bombers are by far the most important ships since all AI ships except Missile Frigates will be destroyed by Warheads. Bombers and Munitions Boosters both have a bonus against Artillery hull. And of course Bombers are good at killing those Core Force Fields too. And AI Fortresses. Although if the Homeworlds have Fortresses I'll consider nuking them. If I remember correctly nuking disables AI Fortresses. Raid Starships do a lot of damage against Force Fields too especially when boosted so might unlock those too.

Ahh.. got a good night's sleep and am done with my breakfast. Time to kick some butt again.*opens up AI War*Oookk where we left off....The Zenith Miners are still mining, defenses are rebuilt, metal is flowing and things look good. Ok lets get rid of these Miners and then capture the rest of the P2 planets..*Warning sound!*Oh a CPA was just announced. Just as I excepted. Around the 4 hour mark, a bit earlier. 14718 ships, great. Oh well, I love the smell of mangled oil leaking burning robots in the morning anyway.*sips coffee*Coffee tastest exceptionally good this morning. 8 minutes 51 seconds before the CPA spawns. Time to start building Mark II Warheads. I'll build every other on my homeworld and every other on Ancestry VIII. Scrapped the other Cloaker Starship and will build it on my homeworld (to cloak the Warheads). I also need to send scouts to all surrounding AI planets withing 2 hops so see in advance where the CPA is coming from. Oh and btw there's a Gravity Drill on Ascs 234-E (the planet adjacent/under my homeworld). I need to rebuild the beachhead there. It will do great job at softening the CPA if it decides to take that route. Although I'm afraid all of it is going to hit Ancestry VIII.

I need to get rid of the Miner on Ancestry VIII and I'd like to get rid of the Miner on Juliet November. If I am to do it I'll have to do it before the CPA since I have only 11 minutes 52 seconds before the Miners blow up the planets. I'd like to save Juliet November because it's very lightly defended and it's in a good position (adjacent to Ancestry VIII) for knowledge hacking later. Reggeth I wont even try to save. Don't have time. It has Ion Cannons and more guards so it would take too much time.

Destroying the Miner on Ancestry VIII proved to be grindy enough that it made me give up on the idea of saving Juliet November. Instead I'll use the time and resources to capture and fortify Anthem (Adjacent to my homeworld) to protect my homeworld and other planets against the CPA. The problem is that Anthem has over 163 AI Sentinel Frigates....Oh never mind. Apparently the AI kindly sent all of that threat to my homeworld (yes that's a good thing). Makes capturing Anthem much easier.Except that now the Plasma Siege Starship desrtoyed the Counter Sniper Turret next to my Home Command Station and now the Sentinels started bombarding the Force Fields. Already died to this in this game before. Luckily that was fixed quite quickly by building a new one outside of the Force Fields.

Oh dear lord what have I done to myself. Destroying the Co-Processor on Anthem increased the AIP by 20 and triggered an exogalactic strike force because the AI is Raid Engine / Vengeful. As if either one alone wouldn't have been enough.

Thankfully my defenses were strong enough to auto stop that exo. That was a good "gear check". Had my defenses not been able to auto stop that amount of strength at this point I could have as well abandoned the game. But nope, that's why I unlock all the defenses. I've now captured Anthem and am focus building Needler Turrets before those AI Starships get in range. Also the CPA has spawned so I have only a couple of minutes to build everything. Aaannd I just now noticed something..

..yet another exo for destroying the AI Command Station on Anthem. Of course. Heading towards my homeworld

Time to rebuild the mine fields. 5 hostile wormholes so that's 294/5/3 = 3 lines of 19 Area and Normal Minefields on each wormhole.

WHAT?? Another exo! I have no idea what this one is for. This one is also heading towards my homeworld. The first one was for the Co-Processor and the second one was for the Command Station.. don't know about this one. The first CPA Carriers also appeared and some are heading towards my homeworld and some towards Ancesrty VIII.

This is why I hate Zenith Siege Engines. The Carrier just dropped 249 Mark III Zenith Siege Engines almost in range of my Command Station. If it wasn't my Home Command Station they would simply one shot it, I'd lose power and it would the game. Luckily Home Command Station is immune to that ability's effect. Still I have no option but to use the Mark II Warhead I have.

After the Warhead detonation:..and few seconds after that....guess what the Carrier just dropped? Yep. Almost 100 Mark III Zenith Siege Engines almost in range of my Command Station. Now once again.. if this wasn't my Home Command Station.. they would one shot my Command Station thanks to that ability. Especially with the Munitions Boosters. They did destroy the Counter Sniper Turret so the AI snipers started to wreak havoc on the Force Field. Fixed that by building another Counter Sniper outside the Force Fields.

In the mean time I destroyed ~3700 AI ships on Swog. Decided to take no chances and pop a Mark II Warhead. I need my engineers, remain rebuilders and defenses to be ready when the biggest chunk of the CPA comes.

Update on the progress on surviving the CPA. Things are going much more smoothly than I though. Only ~8000 ships left of the 14k. The last 6000 will probably come together as a one big blob. The first couple thousand always come on their own here and there which makes things a lot easier. Also I had no time to rebuild any of the beachheads btw. So so much for the depth in my defenses. They will be ready for the next CPA though. This 14k one is still a small one. Oohh buddy.. the next CPA will probably be over 20k and all CPAs after that will have about 40k.I'm moving all 39 Remain Rebuilder from my homeworld to Anthem (the rightmost planet, the one with the Black Hole Machine I just captured) to repair the Minefields before the 2k threat arrives.

Aaaannd a reload. Zenith Siege Engines did exactly what I described above to Swog. Wonderful. Back to 3h54m. Anthem is captured and the CPA has already spawned. 11429 threat left.

Lets try yet again....Almost a third reload. This time I managed to capture it on camera. This is just ONE shot from a Mark III Zenith Siege Engine that was boosted by Mark III Munitions Boosters (240% damage). But that's not a surprise since the Command Stations are made of paper. 2999 health. Pitiful. Military Command Stations wouldn't be quite as vunerable to this but still. Oh.. and that one shot also destroyed the Counter Sniper Turret under the Force Field. And since the Force Fields are now taking damage from the snipers I can't repair the Command Station until I've built a Counter Sniper Turret outside of the Force Field and waited for x mount of time for the "has taken damage in y amount of time" thing goes away and I can repair stuff again. That one shot also one shotted all engineers and rebuilders that were under the Force Fields.

Off to slaughter puppies and punch kittens... erm I mean.. take a break. Cool down.No I'm not done yet. Not gonna give up this time, at least not yet. If AI has the unfair advantage of ZSEs then I shall have the unfair advantage of save scumming. Note: Reloading because of a fatal mistake =/= save scumming. Save scumming = load over and over again until you get out of a hairy situation with a best possible out come. Which requires heavy micro, nerves of a cow and a lot of coffee.

EDIT: Now it happened to the third time. Literately the only way to stop this from happening is to preemptively Lightning Warhead all Carriers.

EDIT: This is another problem I've ran into numerous times. I'm unable to target the ship I want since they're all piled up like that. This can cost a game sometimes. Trying to get that Munitions Booster in there. And the Plasma Siege Starship.

BWAHAHAHA! This has to be the best cheese ever! I don't care anymore, I'll use every cheese and savescum I can get. These EyeBots snuck by and would have destroyed that Command Station within ~10 second of loading that save file (a test save file). Letting the Scout Starship get destroyed and forgetting to replace it was my own mistake. But I'm still going to go with this cheese, I don't care anymore.

So here are the EyeBots. They have already shot their missiles and they're heading towards the Command Station as you see.

It's ok I have some aces in my sleeve too. I'm just going to replace the Command Station and the missiles will disappear.

And while the EyeBots are reloading I'm going to focus fire them with all the Turrets. Take that you AI.I have to say. I usually refrain myself from doing this level of cheese. I have numerous saves before and during the CPA but at this point I don't want to reload again. I got past the phase where the Carriers were dropping ZSEs on top of my Command Stations so I just want to move on with my life. Phew.

Ok the CPA has finally been repelled. It was definitely a good gear check and it seems like I need some upgrades....So I have 3000 knowledge at the moment. Next I'm going to beachhead and knowledge hack Ascs 234-EEdit: Never mind I've already hacked it. Going to hack Crysantheym (The Super Terminal planet) instead. after which I will have 6000 knowledge. I need stronger defenses and I need better tools for destroying Raid Engines since I need to start pushing further into AI's territory to find the Homeworlds.

If I unlocked Mark II Plasma Siege Starships all of my Plasma Sieges would have a total burst damage of 48000 and 86400 when boosted, which would be enough to one shot an unprotected Raid Engine. Mark II Plasma Sieges only cost 1000 knowledge while Mark II Raids cost 2000.

During the CPA I noticed I was running out of engineers so I might unlock Mark II Engineers which only cost 1000 knowledge. They would also enhance my ability beachhead and to spend the excess resources faster. Then I have 4000 knowledge left which I could use for Mark III Force Fields. Sounds good to me.

The CPA has been repelled and everything has been rebuilt. Except Force Fields. I scrapped all of my Force Fields and Counter Sniper Turrets and am spreading them more evenly between the planets. 1 Mark II Force Field = 2 Mark I Force Fields so I have (6*2+6*2+10+10)/5 ~ 8 "Force Fields" per planet. 6 to protect the Command Station and 2 to protect the Gravitational, Tractor, Flak and Lightning Turrets in the front line of defenses.